From my sister of all people. After saying that I have too much time on my hands, here is what she wrote back (my response to her response is at the end):
If you break the law there are consequences. They may range from:
>
> 1, Having to consort with unsavory lawbreakers, such as people who steal
> your money as you are trying to cross the border, or
>
> 2. Being separated from your children and family for extended periods of
> time or even forever.
>
> 3. While you are on the "lam" you may be taken advantage of by greedy
> business owners, who are willing to pay you under the table, since you
> cannot use your credentials for fear of being convicted for your crime.
>
> 4. Those same unscrupulous business owners may use your skills and talents,
> and seriously underpay you, know that you have no recourse, since you are a
> lawbreaker, and cannot use the legal system that protects the law abiding.
>
> 5. You may delay seeking healthcare until your situation is emergent, since
> there are police officers and security guards there to protect the patients
> and healthcare providers from criminal elements who might be desperate. You
> may not be a murderer, or a drug addict bent on theft, but by committing a
> crime, you are their associate.
>
> 6. Your children may suffer ridicule as the children of a criminal.
> Society may openly resent having to pay for their education or free lunch,
> with the tax dollars of the law abiding. No one believes children should
> have to suffer "sins of the Fathers", but it is a fact that they do. A
> consequence YOU set up for them, when you decide to commit a crime.
>
> 7. If you decide to celebrate the criminal culture and demand that law
> abiding citizens respect your hard decision to become a law breaker, don't
> be surprised when you are met with dislike, disrespect and derision.
> American's get mad when people cut in line (as we are taught in
> Kindergarten). They will not take well your decision to break the "take
> your turn" law, especially when you taunt them with it.
>
> 8. Don't compare your plight with the six million hard working law abiding
> Jew's massacred by Hitler. You are nothing like them. You are a criminal.
> You had a choice and legal options. You chose to break the law. And as
> far as my vote goes, I want there to be consequences for criminals.
>
> Finally, I think the legal, voting population of the United States really
> only has one decision to make. Do we want people who commit a crime to be
> the immigrant population we embrace, or do we want the populace who have
> followed the laws and rules of their counties, and ours, waiting for their
> turn to legally immigrate to be the next generation of Americans? Who
> should it be?
>
> See, I have too much time on my hands also.
MY RESPONSE:
I am ashamed of you . All along you have been pretending to be a liberal Democrat yet you do not seem to have the compassion for people who are just trying to make a better life for themselves. You see them as criminals, I see them as humans. Our country takes advantage of cheap labor so the law breaking businesses and employers bear much of the blame. Our country has allowed the infiltration of illegal aliens because it helps further the capitalistic motto of more money, more money. This motto is right in line with Republican thinking.
Also, the fact that six years after 9/11 our borders are still not secure is just flabbergasting to me!!!! What in the hell is our government doing??!!!
I agree that immigrants should follow the rule of the law when coming into our country but our country has not done a very good job at enforcing the law. Now all of a sudden everyone is screaming about illegal aliens and how they are taking jobs away from Americans. Please spare me that diatribe. Lazy uneducated American citizens would much rather take advantage of social services than actually having to do hard labor. Many of these same citizens have never contributed to society, have never paid social security.
There are no easy answers as to how to handle 12 million illegal immigrants but I prefer to err on the side of compassion. I guess there is just something about being a liberal Democrat that allows me to have empathy for my fellow man.
I also know that it is not right to imply that all illegals are from Mexico and that they are all here to take advantage of our system. I also have researched the stats concerning how much money these immigrants contribute to our country and that many do pay taxes even if they are here illegally. Here are some excerpts from a Knight Ridder article:
The fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. ... immigrants aren't flocking to the United States to mooch off the government. According to a study by the Urban Institute, the 1996 welfare reform effort dramatically reduced the use of welfare by undocumented immigrant households, exactly as intended. And another vital thing happened in 1996: the Internal Revenue Service began issuing identification numbers to enable illegal immigrants who don't have Social Security numbers to file taxes.
Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal aliens in the country today file personal income taxes using these numbers, contributing billions to federal coffers. No doubt they hope that this will one day help them acquire legal status — a plaintive expression of their desire to play by the rules and come out of the shadows.
What's more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, in 2005, the revenues from these fake numbers — that the Social Security administration stashes in the “earnings suspense file” — added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year.
Beyond federal taxes, all illegals automatically pay state sales taxes that contribute toward the upkeep of public facilities such as roads that they use, and property taxes through their rent that contribute toward the schooling of their children. The non-partisan National Research Council found that when the taxes paid by the children of low-skilled immigrant families — most of whom are illegal — are factored in, they contribute on average $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume. From:
http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20060501.shtml On a side note: Knight Ridder is one of the most respected news agencies. They actually questioned the Iraq war when our administration was planning to invade. They did not back down on their reporting due to fear of seeming "unpatriotic". They asked tough questions in 2003 and reported facts about the 9/11/Iraq connection (there was none). Unfortunately the rest of the media allowed Bush and his ilk to intimidate them. Google Knight Ridder (they have recently been bought by another news service) to learn more about their stellar reporting.
So tell me. What has happened to my once liberal sister? Has living with a Republican rubbed off on you or is it the fact that you now live in Texas, a border state? As for having too much time on my hands - to me there is always enough time to show compassion to other human beings and to set the record straight where I can. Also, immigrants are not comparing their plight to the hard-working Jews. I made this juxtaposition showing how a society can so easily speak out against a particular group of people which can incite racial biases and hate.
Take Care!
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